Q&A on Best Travel Hacker Meetups, Dream Job & Bloggers I Get Along With

I take some time away from blogs to answer some of your questions. I hope you find something educational and inspiring. If not entertaining, I guarantee you the pic at the end of this post is very entertaining, believe me!

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The whole point of my blog is to keep up with the blogs and curate for you some worthy content to save you time. And of course review blogs because I have been reading most of them since they first started. And I happen to know many of the bloggers too. Seemed like a good idea at the time as I thought it was a good niche that was not claimed by yet another blog out there. Here I am going strong since November 2012…I am enjoying the ride and hope you are too!

I have noticed lately the quality of the content around the blogosphere has gone down. Way down. There is just not much going on in the hobby anymore. Or if it is going…you won’t hear it in public because some blogger will pick up on it and then blog about it and get it killed before you can say Sapphire!

But to diversify (hehe) I always posted various other links I found eclectic enough to share. So, in case the hobby dies, I could have a basis to keep going I guess.

Some time ago I made a blog post “Ask Me Anything” and, since action is so slow, I am going to answer some of your questions in this post:

1. You’ve met several of the bloggers on your ignore list, do you dislike them as much in person as your vitriol suggests online?

First, why do you ask such vitriolic question, are you angry or something? If you have met me in person, you would think that I get along with everybody. And I do. I have no problem with any blogger. I think I do a fair job separating the blog from the blogger. To my credit (pun intended), I have pissed off many bloggers by speaking my mind. Nothing personal. I am not here to kiss bloggers’ ass so they can link to me to help me grow my blog blah blah blah. Being a blog critic is a tough job (that does not pay much!). But my little corner here is for one reason: To entertain, educate and inspire my readers and myself!

Having said all that, as blogging gets personal sometimes (look at this post!) it gets very hard to separate the two! There will be no invitations to spend the holidays together with any of the bloggers listed in my Blogs To Ignore list. I know that. And I think it is good for all parties. But will I refuse to shake hands or say hi to any blogger? I doubt it. It is not in my nature, simple as that. Even Ingy and Rene.

Will I go out of my way to say hello? Hell no! I do not like their blogs and they are in the Ignore list for a reason.

Having said all that, even Ingy and Rene are much better in person than they show online. Oh wait, maybe this applies to me too! 🙂

2. I know you hate a lot of the meetups like Chicago Seminars, FTU, etc. that are hosted by the titans. What regional or national meetups would you suggest? Thanks!

You need to understand that the two meetups you mention are all business for the presenters. They have a business (the blog) and they present their expertise and meeting readers is part of the work. They may not get paid in speaking fees but always remember that they are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts, it is just good business! And attending these events does cost a lot of money, not just for the event ticket but transportation, lodging and food/entertainment and you realize that it is not free to travel for free ok?

I prefer old school meetups. They are smaller. There is no fee or it is very nominal. Where you get to speak to many others. Where there is no celebrity blogger bringing their entourage to do giveaways (looking at you The Points Guy). There are no phucking booths with pamphlets and other packaged promotional shit like that (looking at you Emily), I get enough of this crap in professional conferences. And, for crying out loud, there are no TV cameras filming away! You get to do what you do at the big meetups and you know the speaker is working you to like him/her so you can click on their affiliate credit card links (which remains the primary way of blogs in this space making money!).

First stop should be the Community Buzz forum in Flyertalk. Some of these meetings or DOs if you prefer have been ongoing for almost 20 years now! You won’t be sold in a slick presentation in them! Then again, if you read their blogs, you won’t really gain much from attending one of the commercial meetups. Are they a lot of fun? Sure, it’s always nice be around people who understand you I guess. But you can do that without costing you an arm and two legs.

There are many local meetups around the country where we talk the latest techniques and practices, all in an informal setting. We have one in Michigan and the one in San Diego meets regularly. Travel With Grant and Rapid Travel Chai regularly post about local meetups. Ask in the comments and get connected! We are everywhere 🙂

Two dearest in my heart are the Ann Arbor Art Fair DO and the Brooklyn Reality Tour.

3. What would be your favorite now-dead deal (e.g., the Mint, etc) to bring back (whether or not you participated at the time)?

Hmmm, there have been so many. Such a difficult question to answer. I think the easiest by far was the Vanilla Reload cards at CVS. I even made a parody video about it when this one died. What was remarkable was…how long this baby lasted. Not going to happen in today’s world with the vast audience reading some of the Titan blogs!

After that for me was the dollar coins at the Mint. Maybe my current sciatica issues I have were a result of hauling all those boxes to the bank to deposit 🙂  Looking back, it is amazing how this one lasted for ages too! I became good friends with the guy delivering the boxes, I miss that dude. But I think after doing it for sometime he hated me. Or maybe that is why he switched routes, I don’t know.

I am not going to get into the MS activities. I mean, it was never fun going to WalMart, just tolerable I guess. I have done some other crazy stuff and wrote a post about it.

But looking back, the CVS Vanilla and Mint deals were best because they were so easy even a caveman could do it.

Yeah…this is an addiction…

4. If you had to pick an alternative job (your day job, not the blog) – any job in the world, what would it be?

Easy. Professional soccer player. I had some talent but broke my ankle very badly when I was 14 and 17. Still bothers me but that was it. Oh well, you need to move on. I don’t like to do this exercise. We make our choices and make the best out of it. “What if’s are for dreamers, be a doer”. Not sure where I heard that but I always liked it.

Having said that, I love my day job and want none other! I don’t have a boss and I have a flexible schedule. Most importantly, I only work with people I like and can (and usually do) say no to any people I feel may not be a good fit. And to be a good fit we must like each other. Life is too short to work with people you do not like interacting with!

It took me a while to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. But, you know, I owe you guys a long answer to another question that was asked…how I got here. I’ll get to that someday.  I was interested in doing that anyways as I wanted my blog to be a repository of awesomeness for my kids and grand kids one day to look back to see what a bad ass I was. Lol.

And I leave you with this…I see myself in this dad pic woohoo

Check out my updated blog lists: Blogs I Love, Blogs I Like, Blogs To Ignore

TBB
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